Ex-police inspector took lethal cocktail — (Gazette and Herald)

Gazette and Herald

5:00pm Thursday 12th September 2013

FORMER police inspector Craig John Hill took his own life after being convicted of assault.

Mr Hill, 54, took an overdose in bed at home in The Street, Chirton.

He had taken a cocktail of alcohol and paracetamol, codeine and anti-depressants after returning home from his brother’s wedding on October 20 last year.

Two days earlier he had been convicted at Salisbury magistrates’ court of assaulting three people the day before the diamond jubilee in June, charges to which Mr Hill had pleaded not guilty. He was due to be sentenced a month later.

His son Ryan Hill said in a statement to an inquest in Salisbury yesterday that his father had been “in high spirits” in the car on the way to the wedding, but “he became withdrawn as the day went on and was physically but not mentally present”.

His mother Anita had got up in the early hours to make herself a cup of tea and when she went back to bed found her husband was not breathing.

Mr Hill said: “I found dad in mum’s bed. I saw a tray with blisterpacks on the floor by the bed. I knew straight away what he’d done and it wasn’t good.”

He had sent a text message at 2.15am and left a note written in pencil along with his will on the bedsheet. Assistant coroner Dr Claire Balysz did not consider any other verdicts at the inquest. She was told he had tried to commit suicide in autumn 2010.

Mr Hill said things had changed when he was about 15 and his father became “more Jekyll and Hyde”. He said: “There was no logic as to when he might erupt. It wasn’t physical. I was never worried he’d hurt me or his family.

“He left work in 2010 and that seemed to make him more placid and relaxed.”

Mr Hill’s GP gave written evidence that he had a history of self-harm and alcohol dependence. But when she saw him three days before the court hearing, he had not seemed overly worried about the outcome.